Huskers Ink 24 on Signing Day

Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini announced the Huskers’ 2014 recruiting class on Wednesday. The Huskers welcome 24 scholarship players to the program for the 2014 season, including three players who enrolled at Nebraska in January.

The scholarship class includes players from 13 states, including four players from Texas and three each from Nebraska, Florida and Louisiana. Among the signees, 13 players are expected to begin their career on offense, with 10 defensive players and a place-kicker.

In addition to the scholarship signees, Nebraska added 18 players as walk-on prospects in the 2014 class. The walk-on class includes 16 players from Nebraska, as well as prospects from Michigan and New York.

Walk-On Student-Athletes(list of walk-ons updated on Feb. 5, 2014; future walk-ons will be added to the list once they have completed the admission process and can be released in compliance with NCAA rules)

Quotes from Head Coach Bo Pelini's Press ConferenceOpening Statement“Excited about this recruiting class, this signing class, which turned out to be 24 kids we signed to letters of intents and scholarships, total of 18 walk-ons, 16 in-state, two out-of-state. There was a lot of hard work that was put into getting this class together. I feel good about them on the surface of what they’re potential is, but that’s exactly what it is, potential. I always say recruiting doesn’t end, it just gets started when you get to Signing Day because now it’s up to us to develop these young men. I want to thank obviously my staff, the administration here and what they did for us as far as helping with private planes and really all the people behind the scenes who helped make this happen. It is a team effort to put together a signing class. Everyone knows about the coaches going out and all the legwork that has to go into things, but I’m talking about the people who give their time here behind the scenes as far as setting things up for recruiting weekends and giving their time to meet with recruits on Friday nights, Saturdays, Saturday nights, Sundays, and time away from their families. Not only the coaches, but, like I said, all the people behind the scenes, Dennis Leblanc and Keith Zimmer and really everybody associated with our administration. Without everybody’s efforts, this class wouldn’t be possible. I thank them all, I appreciate it. I know one thing, I feel great about this signing class and what it’ll bring to the table. I know the coaches went a long way, watched a lot of film and scoured a lot of territory to find this group. Not only good football players, but kids who are right for the University of Nebraska. Right for our culture, right for our program, kids who want to compete, kids who want to win championships, and kids who football are very important to them. And I can say right down the line that these kids love to play football. They’re a good group of young men and kids that I really look forward to coaching, but also kids who understand the balance that is necessary when you sign up to play football at Nebraska, that first and foremost, you have to represent this program in a certain manner. Not only off the field, but in the classroom, and with that, those things will carry over to how they grow as football players. But I like the potential, I’m excited about the group, and now I’ll open it for any questions you guys have.”

On if there was a certain position he saw as the biggest need“No, we had our numbers going in. We gauged that on, at the end of the day, what we want our numbers to be, in a perfect world, what they’re going to be. Very rarely do you ever hit those numbers; that takes some time because at the end of the day, there’s a lot of things that play into the recruiting process, getting the right kids. You don’t want to take kids, somebody who maybe doesn't fit your program or somebody maybe you’re not sure of just to fill a need, per say. You want good football players, and I think we accomplished that. I thought, for the most part, we hit the areas we wanted to, hit the numbers we wanted to get to. It’s kind of an inexact science, but, at the end of the day, we watched a lot of film and came together and feel really good about this group of young men that are coming to play football for us.”

On how he feels about the defensive line recruits“Really good. I really like that group. We have four guys, possibly. Three, obviously, with (Tanner) Farmer, (Jerald) Foster and (Nick) Gates. Three guys we think are really good football players. (Mick) Stoltenberg, a guy I know who can be a heckuva an offensive lineman, but also has the potential to be a tremendous defensive lineman if we go that route. Mick, a kid who’s that big and can run the way he can, can do a lot of different things for us. What we've talked about is we’ll play him where we can get him on the field the quickest. I think he’s a guy who’s going to be a heckuva football player down the line. And that’s a good group of offensive lineman we signed. I feel really good about them.”

On success of signing nine recruits from the Southeast“You know, we recruit pretty nationally. We got the kids here in the state that we really wanted, felt really good about the local guys starting the class out. You look at D.J. (Foster) and Mr. Gifford, Luke, over there. They did a heckuva job recruiting for us, too. Getting in contact with kids and promoting us, and I think Luke, he was the first one who committed, and he was active all the way through. I think that’s important this day in age with social media. You have to get the kids that are committed to you to work for you, and I thought that worked well for us. So I feel good about that, and you just don’t know where they’re going to come from. We recruit areas. We recruit a little bit by position. Start out more by areas and move to a little bit more by positions as it moves on. It just so happens that we got a pretty good group from the Southeast. It changes, it’s a little cyclical. We’re still trying to figure out how the move to the Big Ten changes us and we’re evaluating that every single year. Now that recruiting is over, we’ve already started those conversations to figure out ‘are we approaching it the right way?’, ‘Is there a better approach?’, and just continue working to try and get better and more efficient in what we’re trying to do. You learn. Now we have three years behind us in this conference and now have a little better idea, some data to look at to figure out what the best approach is going to be going forward.”

On wanting more recruits from the “traditional Big Ten footprint”“I don’t know exactly what that means, ‘traditional Big Ten footprint.’ Like Ohio and Pennsylvania? Possibly. We recruited those areas. We’ve had some success in Ohio over the last couple years, not as much this year. It probably depends on the year.”

On Tanner Farmer, Jerald Foster and Nick Gates’ impacts as freshmen:“We’re going to want them to come in and work hard. That’s what we want out of each and every one of them, to develop. I know everybody wants to talk about these guys like they’re ready to be All-Pros. They’re not. They’re young men that, really across the country, have potential and have a lot of work ahead of them. A lot of work to do and a lot of development that needs to be made. All you have to do is look at the rosters from the Super Bowl. Very few five stars, very few four stars. Lots of three stars, lots of two stars, and a bunch of guys that were unranked. At the end of the day, there’s a lot of talent out there. How people are going to develop, who knows. I’ll have a lot better idea how good this class is, to be honest with you, three or four years from now. Like I said, I feel really good about the potential of this group, but it’s our job now to develop this group into what we saw when we recruited them in the first place.”

On recruiting in Florida“We got on some kids in that state. It’s interesting, it’s really throughout the country. I think each one is individual, it’s individualized in what you’re dealing with. Every single recruiting story you have, there are different dynamics to every kid you recruit. It’s very, very interesting. Who the key people are? In a lot of cases you’re dealing with kids and the coach, sometimes kids, coach and parents. Sometimes you have one parent, sometimes you have two. There are different dynamics in every single one. The distance thing is always a real issue. With some kids it doesn’t make a difference and for some kids it’s a lot bigger deal. A lot of times, it’s the dynamics of the family that you’re talking to and what they want for their child and what they’ve been exposed to in their life. There are so many different dynamics that you have to keep in mind, but they’re issues that are real and a lot of things that are outside of your control. That’s why, in a perfect world, you’d like to sign a full class within 500 miles of this campus, it would be a lot easier. I think heading into this next year, every year as far as that’s concerned, it’s going to be a little bit different. You have to go where you have to evaluate and you have to go where you feel the players are and the kids who you believe will help you win a National Championship because in the end, that’s the ultimate goal.”

On how playing recent bowl games in Florida has helped recruiting“I think we’ve always had good perception down there. We’ve always had good reception down there. Even when you go down into Miami, you look at over long periods of time these parents. The parents of these kids, they grew up watching Nebraska play in all those Orange Bowls. That’s what I mean, they are so many different dynamics involved. It’s a different day in age in the kids you’re recruiting. How up to speed they are as to what is really going on in college football today and how familiar they are with all the different schools and all the things that are going on. There’s some education, from our standpoint that needs to go on, as far as educating them about Nebraska, and other people are really fully aware about what our program is all about. The challenges are different per kid. Every kid you come across has its unique aspects to it.”

On having two quarterbacks in this class (Zack Darlington and AJ Bush)“Well we signed Zack (Darlington) a long time ago. Because of our numbers, we thought it was a possibility for us to sign two. We thought they were both really good football players. Obviously, we were on Zack a long time ago. He’s a winner, he’s a heckuva football player, and a guy that I think could be a really good football player for us. He can do everything. He can run, he can throw, he’s a proven winner, and he’s a tremendous leader. Really feel good about him. And AJ (Bush), we feel the same way. He’s a very talented athlete and a guy that Tim (Beck) really liked. We got on him late and brought him up here and he really liked what he saw, so I think he’ll bring a lot to the table for us. He’s a tremendous athlete.”

On Charlton Warren’s impact on recruiting“Charlton wasn’t here a long time, but it’s obvious that, in the short amount of time he was here, he’s an outstanding recruiter. He’s going to be a huge benefit to our staff, not only as a secondary coach, but as a recruiter. He communicates very well. He works real hard. He couldn’t get out fast enough. He wanted to hit the ground running as soon as he got here and I thought he did a tremendous job for us.”

On any particular areas Charlton Warren would be strong in recruiting“He’s had a lot of success in Georgia. I think that could maybe open some doors for us down there with the contacts that he has, but I think he’ll have success no matter where we put him. Like I said, he’s a tremendous person, he’s a great communicator and has a great work ethic. Those things usually lend to the type of success he’s had over the years in recruiting.”

On whether or not Zack Darlington is cleared to play“Yeah, he’s playing. He’s going through winter. He’s doing fine.”

On the ongoing adjustment to recruiting in the Big Ten“It’s different now in how people perceive you. We haven’t moved in Nebraska, it hasn’t moved, but do they perceive us more like a Big Ten school? Like we’re going to be playing in the snow every week? Which some people think that’s the case, obviously that’s not reality. Do they perceive the Big Ten that much different than the Big 12? Has our reception been different? And really, what has been our success rate? We’ve still been able to go into Texas and have success. Maybe not so much over the last year or two in California for whatever reason, but we’ve kind of moved east. We’ve had a little bit more success. How does the Big Ten Network affect it? You have to acquire data. That happens over three years and you have to evaluate it because, at the end of the day, you have to look at the facts as much as you can to try and develop your strategies going forward. We’re doing that. Our administration is helping us with that. There are a lot of people that we talk to and lean on and get opinions from to continue to improve our strategies going forward.”

On benefit of private planes over the last three weeks“It was huge. I thought we had a pretty good finish to this class, and you’re not able to do that the way things are now just flying commercial all the time. We got tremendous support from the administration and I thought we were able to finish off strong. Get a lot of places in a short amount of time and that obviously helps.”

On sending a message to recruits to get ready to play in their first season“I never sat in anybody’s living room and said, ‘you’re coming in as a redshirt.’ We’re going to get them ready to play. We want kids to get in and have the mindset to come in and be ready to play. How that’s going to play out? There are a lot of factors that are going to play into that, but if someone is coming in without the attitude to come in and work and be ready to go to work and get ready to play in the fall, then they’re doing themselves, they’re doing our program a disservice. The redshirt thing plays out over time. That usually takes care of itself in my experience.”

On Monte Harrison possibly leaving for the MLB Draft“Well I know Monte, number one, is a phenomenal athlete. We’re so excited about him and I think he has every intention of coming here to play football and also play baseball. If that changes, who knows? I know one thing, it would have to be something pretty significant to keep him from doing it because I know in his mind he sees himself as football player. He likes to play the game and is excited about coming here. If something out of the ordinary gets thrown his way where he has to make a decision, at that point we’ll sit down and talk about it.”

On if he views Harrison’s situation differently than Bubba Starling's"I don’t know enough about it, to be honest with you. I’d be talking out of line. I don’t know how the baseball people are going to see him, what kind of money he’s going to be looking at and all that type of thing. Obviously, Bubba was here, came here. Reported here. I don’t know what the money was, but I know it was pretty significant. It was life-changing money. Is that going to be the situation Monte is in? I don’t know.”

On challenge of finding guys that are both high-character and talented football players“Well I do know this, first you better have character on your team. If a guy doesn’t have any character, we don’t want him here. I don’t care how fast he runs or high he jumps or anything else. At the end of the day, that hasn’t been a huge issue for us because it usually weeds itself out during the recruiting process. If somebody doesn’t fit our program, we’re not going to take them, no matter what the so-called experts say he can do football-wise. In the end, it’ll hurt you somewhere down the line. If a kid doesn’t have character, the kid’s not going to do things and he’s not going to buy into doing things the right way. Somewhere along the line, it’s going to hurt your football team and it’s going to hurt your program.”

On incidents in the past when he turned down recruits due to lack of character“There have been some incidents where we haven’t taken a guy. There’s also been some times when players have said, ‘this guy doesn’t fit us,’ from their interaction with them on a visit. Players currently on the football team. I can say this, somebody showed me one thing where people were saying, ‘Bo Pelini or the staff are more interested in character than talent,’ and that’s the craziest the thing I’ve ever heard. We want both. Any notion that we don’t care, we want both. Anything that’s being portrayed any other way is ludicrous. That isn’t the case. And I can tell you this, you just look at the guys on our football team. The kids we recruited, those are the types of kids we believe in.”

On how his cat handled the plane rides“Awesome. It went with me everywhere I went. I can’t tell you the cat’s name. I don’t go there, that’s private between us, but became a helluva closer, I’ll tell ya. Really closed the deal on a couple of them and I’m really fired up about his future in recruiting.”

On getting three guys from Edna Karr (Glenn Irons, Jariah Tolbert, Jaevon Walton) and getting his footprint in New Orleans“From my time at LSU, we’ve gotten great reception down in New Orleans. You know it was funny, it was valuable. I went down there and saw those young men play in person and didn’t know a whole heckuva lot about those three guys until I watched them play in person and felt really good about it. About what I believe they could bring to the table for us, the type of athletes they were and the type of competitors they were, and I’m thrilled to have those three young men on our football team. There’s a lot of talent in New Orleans. Obviously, I have some contacts down there, I know some people. They play good football. They’re good, hardworking type kids. Blue-collar type kids that come out of a lot of those programs. You look at Cethan (Carter) and some of the kids we’ve gotten from down in Louisiana. We’ve had some pretty good success and hopefully that can continue.”

On his reaction to watching Walton in-person“It only took me about a quarter-and-a-half and I remember, Terry Joseph was with me at the time, and I turned to him and said, ‘I want him on our football team.’ I love the way he plays. The type of physicality, the passion he plays with, and, really, the same could be said about the other two guys. They competed. Sometimes you see some things live and in-person that you can’t necessarily see on film. Some of the intangibles, the way a kid competes, the way his teammates react to him. That was pretty obvious to me with those three young men and, like I said, I’m thrilled to have them.”

On his expectations for the walk-ons"I know Jeff says, Jeff Jamrog, he’s obviously important as far as the walk-on program and putting the class together and finding us names and things about people to evaluate, he says it’s the best class since 1983. Well, you know who was a walk-on in 1983. So I can say this for sure, just based on the fact that Jeff was in that class, this is the best class since 1982. No, I like this class. It’s a good class and I don’t think it’s over yet. We still have a couple of other kids we’re still talking to with a possibility of them joining our class, but I like the group. Your needs kind of change as you go through a season. You see kind of where you need the extra numbers at, where you have guys, but I feel real good. I think there are a number of guys on this list, and it’s always played out this way since I’ve been here, that are going to help this football team significantly. I feel really good about it and I feel good about the positions we have them in to give us some extra depth. They’ll all be given a heck of an opportunity to come in and compete, and that’s what these kids sign up to do. The opportunity will be there for them. I feel really good about this group of young men and the staff worked hard to make it happen.”

On why the Southeast region produces so many recruits“Population. The way the country’s moved, a lot of it has gone south. Just by sheer numbers, by population and numbers. There are more kids, there are going to be more players. Maybe being in warm weather year-round, I don’t know. I think every year is a little bit different.”

On possibility of recruits impacting the return game“Yeah, I think a number of them can. Glenn Irons, one in particular. That was one of the things that caught my eye. Demornay (Pierson-El) for sure. I would say Trai Mosley and I think Monte Harrison can do anything he puts his mind to. So there’s a number of guys that have that kind of ability, but I saw Glenn Irons do it up-close and in-person and he is pretty explosive at it.”

On possibility of expanding recruiting staff“We’re going to be expanding our recruiting staff. When it all came about, obviously it was during the season and we were not able to move in that direction as of yet. We’re in the process of doing that right now, of hiring some extra help and some more guys. I think it’s going to be a big advantage for us moving forward. I really like, we just had a meeting the other day. We all came together and tried to figure out, okay, what’s the best model going forward for us? We’re not worried about what other people are doing. What’s the best model for us here at Nebraska to get done what we have to get done? I thought it was a very productive meeting and one where I think, going forward, we’re going to have a plan in place that we all feel good about.”

On how many will be added to the recruitment staff“It’s hard to say. We’re trying to piece it all together to make sure we’re not just doing anything to do it. We want to make sure there are good reasons for what we’re doing and really look at the long-term best interests so we can get done what we want to get done.”

On what it was like recruiting Peyton Newell“I think it was very good. Obviously (John Papuchis), (Rick Kaczenski) and John Garrison were very influential in getting that done, building a relationship. Relationships are very important for him and his family and I think he felt really comfortable with, first and foremost, Kaz, as his position coach, and J.P., who obviously works with the defense, and felt that it was the best place for him. I really like him. I like his potential and kind of has a college-ready body right now. He’s a guy who’s bigger, obviously, he’s got a lot of work to do to kind of move things around and continue to get bigger, faster, stronger. He’s in the 6’3” range and 285, or whatever he is right now, and he has a mentality and a maturity and, in my opinion, the type of work ethic that will allow him to maybe come in and make an impact quickly.”

On the importance of hiring Coach Warren before the final two weeks of recruitment“At the end of the day, it was obviously better to get another body on the road recruiting, but the most important thing to me was hiring the right guy, and I believe we did that. I’m thrilled about having Charlton on our staff, and if that would’ve taken until February 15 to get that done, that’s what we would’ve done. At the end of the day, I wanted to find the right person, a person that I felt comfortable with doing everything that we were going to ask them to do. Not just hiring somebody to get through the last two weeks. It’s too important of a hire to make a decision based on that.”

On how he found DeAndre Wills“I don’t know. I know that we got a call about him. We were out recruiting and then, from that point forward, we kind of did our homework. I knew Coach (Rick) Kaczenski, was very influential in that. I was with Kaz and J.P. (John Papuchis) when he kind of came in on our radar, which was good because I was with those guys when we were watching tape together and figured out if he was somebody we really wanted to pursue. I really like him. I think he has a tremendous potential. He’s a guy that, I think when he was here on campus, he weighed around 251, but he’s a guy that looks like he’s 220. So I think he was a really good get for us.

On Nebraska having to be adaptable in recruiting due to lack of numbers inside the 500-mile radius“You do have to be ready to adapt a little bit. You also have to have a deeper recruiting board. Where somebody might have three or four guys, we might need to have 11 or 12 guys. I just believe this, we talked to them about turning over every stump. We have to evaluate and keep evaluating. And I’ve said it before, we don’t worry about what star ratings are or what these different recruiting services perceive things, it doesn’t really matter. We look at guys that we believe, not just what they are now, but what they can be two, three, four years down the road. We’ve had a lot of success with that, and to do that, you have to watch a lot of film. You have to cover a lot of ground, talk to a lot of people and do your homework. I think we’ve had some pretty good success with that and that needs to continue.”

How he feels about the recruiting year at defensive end“We recruited a lot of guys, we looked at a lot of guys. We went down the road with a few different guys and it didn’t work out, but all I’m worried about is the three guys that we signed and I feel really good about them and I think they’ll make our football team better.”

On whether or not he recruits wrestlers on purpose“I think it’s a just a coincidence. I know Maliek (Collins) is probably one of them you’re referring to, but Tanner (Farmer), I watched his whole wrestling tape when I was on my home visit and I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know anything about wrestling, you’d have to talk to (NU Wrestling Coach Mark Manning) Manning about it, but I swear he was pinning almost every guy within about 10 seconds, so he’s pretty good at it. That’s going to help him as a football player. He plays low, he’s very agile, he’s very athletic. That just gives you another piece of information to evaluate a kid on.”

On Curt Tomasevicz’s chance at another gold medal“I’m proud of him, first of all. Curt’s a guy that I coached, I was with him for a year. He’s a tremendous kid. I have a lot of respect for what he’s doing because that’s a lot of hard work that he’s put in to do what he’s done and I wish him luck. I hope he gets another gold.”

On the key factors of getting the 2015 class started“Our coaches did a great job of getting some kids here. There’s some good talent that was drivable. I feel great about where the 2015 class is headed getting some early commitments, but it’s a long way to go. There’s a lot of work between now and then, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow. I feel great about the way this class wrapped up. We’ll worry about 2015 tomorrow. Let’s enjoy this one for a couple hours and I know everyone will start going the other way.”

On if this was the first time Nebraska has hosted juniors before National Signing Day“I think this was the first time we’ve did it. We usually do it the week after or two weeks after and I thought it worked out really well. It became a long weekend because we had official visitors along with the juniors, but I thought it worked out well and it’s something, with the success we had, something we’ll continue in the future.”